So, in brief: 1. You become happier 2. You live longer 3. You make more friends 4. You get better financial opportunities 5. You get healthier 6. You (literally) become smarter Isn't it the best hobby in the world?
You don’t necessarily make friends. If you learn a language in school or on Duolingo, you don’t have any native speakers to talk to, so by learning a language doesn’t get in touch with any new people
@@afjo972 complete nonsense. The Internet gives you an instant opportunity to communicate both in writing and verbally in professional communities, amateur communities and other communities.
Cats when you are speaking in any new language you cannot think in your language then translate it in your brain, before saying the word , because this action takes a fraction of a second in your brain to process it then you sounds as if you do not know the language. You have to think in English not in Spanish. The perfect American or English accent is very difficult to learn because the tongue already knows the position to pronounce each letter of the native or mother language and when you try to position it differently you just give up. The children are able to do it easily but if you learn any foreign language as an adult it is very difficult . I have been living in USA for more than 50 years and cannot get rid of my Sofia Vergara’s accent . BTW I am also Colombian . We Latins living in Miami use a lot of Spanglish among us.
@@Tamake872 english is my second language, but still, its my most used language every day, at the start its hard to make thoughts or even something coherent, but over time youll get to think more and more in other language
I have attempted (in school) Spanish and French, only picking up a minimal amount. Now as an older adult I tried to learn Korean (so I could understand the K-Dramas I was watching). I was having to relearn the same words over and over. Now, at almost 70, I am going to try my hand at Irish. No one to talk to. I just love their ancient culture and mythology. But I may revisit Korean again too.....
I'm trilingual--English as mother tongue and then the serial study of Japanese and French. I just started German three months ago and have been doing something in all four languages every day. This video helps me confirm what I've been experiencing. What's most wonderful about language #4 is that my mind is so much more "at ease" with language acquisition.
@@Kenoticrunner That's so cool! I'm german and have studied Italian for a few years now; and I thought of starting with Japanese this year! Mainly because I'm intersted in their culture and also I didn't want to learn another western european language, although that would be way easier...
@@aelie8198 I lived in Japan for 4 years. U would suggest learning to speak formal Japanese through your classes. It's better to err on side of formality in Japanese: you will make a better impression. Of course you can learn slang but only to speak to people you know ---children, teens and maybe to your Japanese tutor if they are very young.
wow, i wondered why writing out my feelings in spanish is different and almost made me feel a little detached from them, but now it makes perfect sense
I am from Ankara, Turkey , at age 18 I moved to the USA ( Portland, Oregon ) and learnt English..At age 27 I moved to China ( Shenzhen, Guangdong ) and I learnt Mandarin Chinese. Now at 46 I started studying Spanish online and next year I will be moving to Colombia to improve my Spanish.. I have to admit I am not certain that learning these two foreign languages has made that kind of a big difference in my brain in terms of exercising it like a muscle, but I know for a fact that it has changed my life in ways unimaginable and it has enriched my life beyond belief ...
Hi Leila ! I have to admit life has been very awesome so far : ) About 13 years ago I was working for a company in China and decided to quit my job to start building my dream life, which is to keep traveling the globe and working online to make money to support the life style so I got into stock trading and through a lot of hard work , failures and lessons, I have made it work : ) I even recently open a RUclips channel where I post my daily trades. So basically, I have my own day-trading business and I specialize in the US stocks only.. I am currently traveling in Turkey, after here will be South America, and after that who knows we will see : ) Cheers ! @@leilaholivia
Oh thats interesting, thanks for sharing, i saw you speak chinese on your channel now too so you seem very comfortable with the language, very impressive
Thanks Leila : ) Yes I speak Chinese , it was a big goal of mine because it is one of the hardest languages to learn but living in China really helped for sure. Where are you writing from ? Do you live in the USA ? @@leilaholivia
The point about recognising different patterns and finding foreign concepts less alien than monolingual people is something I noticed about myself quite recently. I used to translate everything and would struggle when certain words don’t have a good translation or when a sentence structure was vastly different from my native languages. But over time I felt less of an urge to translate things and sort of became more “accepting” of strange concepts and sentence structure in other languages.
May I ask roughly how long it was before you started feeling comfortable not translating back into your native tongue? I'm currently in the process of picking up my second language, and i'm still in the phase of having to translate everything back to English in my head; I was wondering how long before the second language would start to "stick" in that way, haha :)
Never translate everything. I think the key is to memorise a couple of "sample sentences" that you know to be correct. And then, you can form other sentences in the same model. Also, don't go, "oh, you slice off this syllable and add that one, and then it's the plural past tense" or whatever. Memorise the tables: "fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis, fueron". Even though one of my Spanish teachers said, "es una locura". It's not. It works. 🙂
After I learned English, I think differently, it’s magical, it’s like I have adopted another personality of mine, when I speak my native language Chinese, I always be introvert and socially anxious while I speak English I could be honest
You start being more confident about yourself because learning English has that superior feeling like people vieview you a very Educated person and people treat you with respect.
Olly, this is one of your all time greatest videos. A member of my Spanish conversation group had a stroke last year and for several weeks could not communicate in English but could in Spanish.
As a bilingual Spanish speaker I was able to learn enough Russian in 1 year to hold conversations with native speakers. Attending language meetups and practicing with apps like Tandem has proved invaluable. Bottom line: conversing with native speakers provides the context to help my brain retain the information I care about🧠🤓
@@braddo7270I was first exposed to it during overseas deployment and always wanted to learn it one day. Opens up cool travel opportunities and new friendships around the 🌏
@@HCRAYERT.I've learned more cultural history and geography by learning this language than I ever imagined. All by simply talking to people in different countries, in their language.
One thing I would like to ad to the study method, is that you want to be moving after about 45 minutes of inactivity (standing while studying does help) and then for about 15 minutes get your heart pumping just a bit, like walk on some steps, just take a regular walk (preferably a bit faster than normal but any exercise is good exercise) this helps to create focus and helps you learn and remember/make memories better while also making you happy, cus it’s exercise! Also another thing for your eyes is to look away after 30 minutes at something about 30 feet away (10 meters) for at least 30 seconds (closing your eyes also works).
Id love to know how this works for different neurotypes and also with age. When I learnt conversational french 15 years ago I found it expressed a new or different part of my personality which was fun. And I could see how French language patterns and French style of discourse fit together, and in contrast to what happens in my native British English. fascinating But now I am struggling with the basics in German... literally taking years to (fail to) learn simple vocabulary.
Wooow the doing therapy in your second language to emotionally detach and think more logically is such a good idea!! I wonder how far you can take this though because I'm an "empath" for lack of a more scientific name, and that doesn't go away in Spanish or French. In fact if I'm angry, I feel like the words in Spanish can better fit what I want to say with more passion. I often break into Spanish swearing when I'm angry 🤣 it's very satisfying. 😂
@@storylearning honestly there's just something in my soul that awakens 🤣 like "la madre que te parió" (and that's a tame example) like bro... they go directly for the bloodline 🤣 the ancestors even don't escape the wrath of a mildly inconvenienced spanish woman (in my experience) 🤣
@@storylearning yeah I'd love to learn more about the different personality types and if/how they differ in this field. I have a feeling that some people can feel MORE emotive in a language if they're passionate about that language.
Spanish has always been easy to learn as native English speaker because there are so many words that are similar or the same just pronounced differently vs 3 alphabets, tons of homophones and sentence rearrangement.
I’ve been learning German on Duolingo since Sept 2021, as no one else in my household speaks German, I speak to my dog in German… I find it so easy to learn and utilise German thanks to actually being diagnosed and medicated for ADHD.
Dann wünsche ich dir noch reichlich Erfolg beim fortlaufenden Erlernen der deutschen Sprache! Deinem Hund natürlich auch - er ist ja schließlich gezwungenermaßen allzeit deiner sprachlichen Bemühungen ausgesetzt ;)
I am also learning languages using Duolingo; I learnt Dutch first since I am studying in the Netherlands. And I was very excited when I met a Dutch family in Dubai, because I was transitting there, and had a conversation with them, mostly in Dutch
I started Russian from English. Not because I wanted to use the language but as a builder of memory cells. I also fill my time with Ukrainian and French. I don't consider it language learning because I do not speak to others. The long term benefits for me have been good. Probably because I don't pressure myself. Consistency is the key. Never, ever miss a day. Great video from Olly.🎉
I'm watching this in a foreign language 😎 I speak French (mother tongue), English (C1-C2), Hungarian (C1), German (B1-B2) and Russian (B1-B2), and I'm slowly starting Latvian too (I'm not even afraid and I'll surely learn it super fast because I'm used to it + this time I'll be directly immersed in the country), and it's true that it does make me happy. The sole feeling of being able to understand something people around you don't is just really cool. I'm just 18 now, I don't want to count how many languages I'm able to use but I'm sure I want to continue as long as I'm mentally able to do it, no matter how much it became useless with new technologies.
Hello! Do you have good resources for Hungarian ? I am learning it, and am having trouble finding material that is for native speakers. Also any advice for it ? :D
So true, changing to another language is more than just using different words, but the whole way of thinking becomes different. Because language is attached to culture and has a great impact on how to say s.th. Ich bin Deutsche, I do speak english quite well, hablo español un poco и я учу по-русски. 😅
There's a certain feeling for me as a non-native English speaker getting told (and fully understanding!) to learn more languages. "I'm 4 parallel universes ahead" type of stuff
Yes! In the professional field for example, even if you don't know the duties, speaking another language opens new doors bcs you can always learn the job but not the language if that makes sense 😊😊
I'm a native English speaker who speaks Spanish relatively fluently, especially when I worked on a daily basis with native Spanish speakers. I also learned Dutch at the beginning of 3 years in the Netherlands, which was 30+ years ago--but I still speak Dutch to my dogs. I also learned some basic French while living in Nederland. Languages are fun and really do force you to express yourself differently. Now I have a strange urge to learn Welsh because it sounds so beautiful when spoken by @TheWelshViking.
I work as a part-time interpreter and I know many of my colleagues can easily work in other fields than interpretation but they amazingly stayed with it. I think you are right, the sense of satisfaction and joy(after conquering the pressure and brain challenge), plus helping others, are just so rewarding!! And I LOVE the fact of being able to less emotional but more rational while using 2nd language in life. I wish you all best luck in taking on a new language. I might sooner or later try a different one. Have a lovely day!
After round about three months of studying Spanish (because I have a true motive); I have started mentally and subconsciously translating everything that I hear-- and comments under every RUclips video that I watch-- into my target language (German and French are also on the pipeline). There is so much pure joy in learning languages.... especially the urge to converse with native speakers, on a daily basis (#1 for me).
I start with listening only. For at least the better part of a year but preferably for the span of all four seasons, gradually daring myself to mimic what I hear, but without any pressure on myself. Then I begin learning how to read what I’m now accustomed to hearing, likewise gradually expanding the exercise to include reading aloud, reading silently, and reading alongside recorded speech. This stage lasts for a few more years, or perhaps several, but again and most importantly, with me feeling no sense of obligation, only enthusiasm. I don’t even fully comprehend what I’m hearing and reading at this stage. But that’s A-okay. Finally, after many years of exposure, coupled with loads of penalty-free practice, when I realize that I do indeed understand lots if not most of the target language, as both spoken and written, I move on to sink or swim. I go to places and/or events where I have no choice but to find my own voice. For me, this is the best way to approximate learning another language in a fashion similar to the first. Oh, and, for a bonus round (so to speak) I find any means of experiencing how native speakers of that given tongue learn English. This “learning English in reverse” literally and figuratively brings my journey full circle, right back home. Cheers, Olly!
As an Indonesian, I was born a biligual already. I speak Bahasa Indonesia, which is the official language of the country and a local language spoken only where I live. I started taking English more seriously back in 2018, got interested in Spanish in 2019. Recently, I've just started learning Turkish and Italian. I simply love all these languages and it doesn't rule out the possiblity of adding another language in the future😊 Top benefit number 1 is that it makes you happy, couldn't agree more ❤
OMG... You talked about knowing 2 languages and having a trauma to your brain you might recall the 2nd language and not the 1st. I had an experience of that. It was short. I had surgery and as they were waking me up I started using my second language. American Sign Language. I must have been talking a lot with it because they were about to call for an interpreter. I don't even recall speaking with my hands at all. I finally got out that it's a second language... Just to put it in perspective, I had servical spinal surgery and they went through the front if my neck. I ended up with a lot of neck trauma because they cut me about an inch too high and had trouble reaching my surgery area. So when I woke I didn't want to use my voice. I always use my hands when I have a sore throat and don't want to speak. Another thing that happens with me... Sometimes I can't remember a word in English (oddly my native language) and I will try to explain it in ASL it's crazy. Light and off were 2 when I was younger once.
I consider myself as a Polyglot but my mother tongue is Brazilian Portuguese, my 1st foreign language obviously was English and then I decided for German because the proximity from English and then now I have decided to came back to Romance Languages with Italian because it is for me the most near romance language from Brazilian Portuguese than Spanish
In Malay, we have a word called "manja" that cannot be translated into English. Its when a young child, or a pet, is overly attention seeking in a cute way. And we ofc, cant help but want to give them attention 😂
"What does a bilingual cat say?" lol, love it. I grew up bilingual and learned 3 additional modes of communication in addition to that. Anyone I grew up with will all agree that I am different. I have to agree. I see the world differently. I wouldn't say I am smarter, I believe anyone, within reason, can do this. I would say I have worked very hard to get here... I earned it. I would like it if many more people enjoyed this freedom. It is freedom.
LOL! The "What does the bilingual cat say?" joke completely cracked me up! 🤣🤣 All this makes complete sense with what is happening inside my head with learning my second language (Korean). I find that the best way to learn any word is to connect it with a situation, not a meaning. If I connect it with a situation, I'm also connecting with the emotions of that situation, I'm connecting it with how and when that word might be used and I'm connecting it with a powerful memory that acts as a hook. Of course, I record their meanings in English (usually with a number of phrases rather than words to trigger my memory) but I don't connect them with a 'meaning'. For example, Korean "망했다" (munghedda) means basically, "I screwed it up!", but it's connected in my head with a thing I actually did screw up, not with any English words, so that whenever I hear that word, that situation immediately flashes into my head and I feel the meaning. THESE are the words I just don't really forget, unlike when I first started I simply remembered meanings of words directly connected to my native language, which just doesn't work. All that does is connect the new language to the old one in it's pathway so that you have to follow that path back through your old language - painstakingly translate everything through your old language - a pathway that never improves. Perhaps THIS is why school textbook learning just doesn't really work - it teaches intellectually, like remembering a phone number - that's a different kind of memory entirely. This is why story learning does work much better - particularly if you're not living in the culture your language is spoken in - you can at least situate that word with the situation in the story while your brain slowly embeds that word in memory connected together with various usages over time. I often do this too with new words, not with Olly's course, but with stories I listen to on RUclips. But those words inevitably end up being connected to my own life in some way eventually anyway. I suspect that the success one has in integrating a language into their own life is pretty essential to obtaining various levels of fluency. And I always try to use them if I can as soon as a situation presents itself. I'm constantly trying them out on my Korean friends, lol! 😂 In fact, this might be the only advantage for language beginners to living in the country that your new language is spoken. Living in my adopted country where I can actually hear the language everyday, in my experience, hasn't really helped me learn the language faster at all. What it HAS done is enable me to make those situational connections (connections with emotions and situations and memories) within the culture that I'm living. All my hooks and memories of my words and connections are situated in my new culture. Had I learned my new language in my native culture I would have had to make connections with my memories and situations in THAT culture, which wouldn't have worked near as well. As a beginner, living in the culture doesn't help you much with becoming fluent faster at ALL, because you can't have conversations or understand anything because you simply don't know enough anyway. It's only when you reach intermediate level that living in the culture that you are learning the language helps because you can start to have conversations and understand. What it DOES help you with is learning words and connecting them to the situations within that culture. The other thing is that a lot of words ONLY make sense in their own culture (as in Korean compared to English speaking cultures in general), so not knowing the culture would make it a lot more difficult to understand what many words mean if there is no real usage or existing word in your own culture.
This is why foreign language teachers recommend that the learner write a life diary in the new language and include experiences events and thoughts.💕💕🎯🎯🏅🏅
Perception of the world: I'm so in line with what is said! As vocab change, and sometimes the very structure of the sentences, you cannot depict the world the same way in different languages. The world becomes bigger with more than one language. It's also a very good point not to think in one's mother tongue when only logic is needed. Better yet, when having an argument, don't do it in your birth language if you can. It feels a lot more like being in a controlled zone.
For me my first language is English. In School from age 12 through age 17 I learned Spanish which I loved. Then I learned a little German which I might go back to eventually. More recently I've been challenging my brain at learning Japanese hardcore. After I feel I've gotten to a confident level in (Speaking, reading, and listening) in Japanese then I want to learn both Korean & Chinese. I currently live on the East coast of the USA at age 24 going on 25, and before I turn 30 I want to move to Japan
I’ve been trilingual in English, Hindi, and Marathi since birth, can understand Gujarati and just finished A2 of French Uncovered. Can’t wait to begin B1 Olly. For some reason, my first three have become so internalised that it’s hard to believe my brain is doing all this work!
These kinds of videos are so motivating. And it being easier to learn a thrid language after having learned your second is sooo true tho. It feels like a superpower tbh
Thing about the trauma is totally true. I’m fluent in both French and Portuguese but much more bad experiences happened to me in Portuguese when I was a child and French was totally a way to escape that. I feel much more comfortable and sociable and relaxed when speaking French today then when speaking Portuguese. Even my perception about myself changed completely once I started living in a different language context. It’s crazy cause it’s really like having a second life.
This was very interesting. I started learning Spanish at 23, when I lived in Andalucia and 3 years later I'm still learning, but I speak with a B2 level. I started learning French 6 months ago and I just spoke to a native and she said that I sound like someone who has been learning French for 3 years, not 6 months. Of course, the grammar rules are basically identical with Spanish & English has more than 2K words that are French. So I am in a fantastic position to learn this language. However, i remembered my biggest mistake in Spanish was being too embarrassed of myself to speak. So, I often wouldn't try which meant it took me way longer to learn. It wasn't until I went to a Spanish speaking place, in the middle of nowhere where I had to speak Spanish that I actually made progress. So I knew that I could not repeat the same mistake with French. Mistakes are often really funny anyway and make a great story
Thank you for sharing these great news. My native language is Mandarin and I have been speaking English for many many years. I do find I can be detached emotionally when speaking English. I am translating Chinese poetry into English. I find the subtle feelings that I can easily expressed in Mandarin are very hard for me to put into English and trigger similar emotional reactions for me. I am lucky that I have a colleague to work with me and he is able to get the some of the feeling expressed in English after my lengthy explanation!!
Has anyone else when using a third language and not knowing a word then switch to your second language to finish the thought/sentence rather than switching to first language? It happens all the time for me. I’d like to understand the science behind it. 🤔
Yes, I wasn't aware, but now after reading your comment, I think you're right. Currently I'm learning italian. If I don't know a word, I switch to english and after that to my mothertongue. But I also see the effect the other way around. I'm also learning a little Irish on a very basic level. But often some irish words pop up in my head whenever I try to write and speak proper english and lack of vocabulary 😅
This happens to me when I'm speaking Japanese (I'm not fluent at all so I struggle a lot with vocabulary) but I thought it was because I'm learning Japanese using English and not my native language (Spanish)
1-English 2-French (basic conversational) 3-ASL (limited conversational) 4-Spanish (also limited conversational) Linguo-glitch moment: i was conversing in French when my brain got stuck in mid-sentence .. this was a phone call so the other person wouldn't have seen my hands move toward each other (in ASL) when "con" (Spanish word) took the correct placement where "avec" was missing. I had misplaced the French word for "with," and I have two other standby languages stored in my brain. American Sign Language "with" uses both hands (in almost this shape 👍) with fingers curled onto palms and thumb out, with palms facing to each other, and then moving toward each other until the middle-knuckle segments meet flat. ASL's origin began in French language structure, and it has developed into more of a thought-concept language rather than the word-for-word "Signed English" version. It's a fascinating language that uses hand shape, orientation, placement, and movement, along with facial expressions and body movement, to converse in thought-concept with a looser sentence structure than spoken languages. There is no grammar rule that says you must sign the sequence as "Shirt Mine Blue" or "Shirt Blue Mine." It's less common (less acceptable?) to put the adjectives before the noun as we do in spoken English. Never Stop Learning! ❤
@9:00 When it was too late to benefit my kids, I heard that if you play a nonnative language (Telemundo, for instance) for the first 6 mos of the kid's life, it makes it *much* easier for the kid to learn languages throughout it's life.
You have a new subscriber...MOI! I am not quite fluent in Spanish, but I understand the basics and can get around in a Spanish-speaking town if I need / want to. I grew up in Texas, where I felt it was important to learn Spanish and I recently came to Lousiana where I naturally feel encouraged to learn French. I love languages! Seeing the similaries between the romance languages blows my mind. Thank you for the fascinating information!
It's 2024 and I've started learning Italian, my native language is Turkish, I've already learned enough English and now I'm learning Italian. I'll come here at 1 January 2025 and write my level of Italian. See you guys in 2025, arrivederci 👋🏼
Few years ago i started my knowledge in English , today I until not are a fluent speaker yet , but I can understood everything, so now I’m thinking about to learn French , I from Brazil 🇧🇷, my maternal tongue are the Portuuese, but I’m trying everyday to learn more and more.
I fully experience that heal trauma one!!! I wasn't able to discuss anything about how I felt or what I was thinking in my native language. I had no problem with comprehension in my first language, but I just couldn't really talk. It confused and bothered me for so many years until I suddenly came to study abroad, and I was able to talk to a therapist finally in my second language. People were asking me why I didn't get a therapist in my native language, like they were wondering if I'd feel getting more barriers talking about myself in a second language. But then no. Despite I didn't know as many words in my second language, I talk better. Because there're just so many emotions associated with all the words in my native language, that I just can't talk about anything, because talking about anything in my first language would overwhelm me with emotions. (Then I learned a third language, but not really fluent. And an interesting thing I found is that I'm now able to calm myself by thinking in my third language. Because I don't actually talk to anyone in my third language. By thinking in my third language, I sort of manage to limit my brain activity, which is therapeutic to me.)
I like how I actually learned english as a second language and now that im fluent in it, I watch english RUclips videos to learn other languages lol. I actually gotta remind myself sometimes that english isn't even my first language, when I feel like im wasting my time watching these videos. Cause thats literally how I learned english in the first place. "Wasting" my time watching english RUclips all day, reading english comments and writing comments in english myself (just like this one). Turns out I didn't waste my time after all huh.
I speak Indonesian natively and while growing up surrounded by Mandarin speakers, Balinese, East + Central Javanese, and Kupang language. I can understand French now as I grow older. If you have kids, make sure they learn multiple languages AND music or singing. You will be surprised at how intelligent they will grow up to be.
I came across this video because I'm studying Egyptian Arabic. American-English is my first language, Punjabi second, Spanish third and now Arabic! It's the hardest and TONS of fun while very HARD also. I can feel the positive effects on my brain... it's AWESOME. Great video!
I remember in my 20s, I was confronted by Scientology to take a "personality test." I translated all the questions into Japanese, answered in Japanese, then picked the closest answer in English. I was adjudged a wreck and in imminent need of Scientology's help. I tried it several months later in English, with similar dire need of Scientology's assistance. The weird part is that I have slightly different opinions in either language. And don't get me started in Mexican Spanish now that I live in California!
Scientology is a scam , they would have said you need help no matter what. A different person administering the test could have interpreted it differenlty. Go to their turf in Clearwater FL. It was a super creepy experience.
As far as I understand, dopamine isn’t the happiness or reward chemical, it’s the motivation or anticipation chemical. It’s linked with addiction because it makes it feel like there will be a reward, which explains why it isn’t maximal after something good happens but before.
To be honest, i was looking for this for a long time. I have been learning Japanese for 3 years..And it seems so hard to me that many many times I wanted to give up.. And I always wandered that I'm working so hard and if it has any kind of impact on my brain
Mi lengua materna es el castellano,y entiendo el inglés. Es una gran satisfacción para mí ver un video,y darme cuenta después de que lo ví (porque estaba muy concentrado en el tema) ,que el video estaba en inglés y no en español 😄. Es una tontería,pero realmente me alegra el día. Estoy pensando estudiar Japonés y Alemán ;estudiar idiomas me han cambiado la vida,me han ayudado a superar mi depresión.
Now I feel like a chad. Yeah, I am smarter, I am better. Even if the rules of Norwegian are nearly identical to English; I went to the shop. Jeg gikk til butikken. The only difference is the “en”at the end of butikk, that replaces the. For my third language, I decided to go for one that will challenge me. Let’s hope that I feel even smarter after that
A question to the author of the video. Any ideas if one is learning 2-3 languages at the same time? How not to forget and do not mix up the words from one language to the other? Thanks in advance.
I’m from India I know 4 languages (learning more) and currently living in Spain . It’s been a year in Spain and I’m so happy with my progress that I can express my emotions and feelings in Spanish and I recently cried over something and I expressed how I felt in Spanish 😂😂
I am danish, lived in Germany as a child, learned english in school, have a child with an italian, so I speak italian too. And a little bit french and spanish. I love being a polyglot 😁. Love from Denmark 🇩🇰
10:53 this seemed pretty normal to me. I've always felt it strange that in English we call those two colors both "blue", since they very clearly look like two distinct and different colors. although this allows me to easily understand how other language might use a single word for two or more differentiated color names in English
As an Indonesian, I speak 5 languages. 1. Sundanese, local west Java province. 2. Indonesian, for school and work. 3. English, for deeper education and entertainment. 4. Arabic, well I am Muslim and spent 1 year learning. 5. Japanese. Now I work in Japan.
As a native Spanish speaker pls don't generalize us. Cubans and mexicans have waay different rhythms of speech😂 Colombians and panamanians as well. It's like saying that all English speakers are from England or the US. Nevertheless this is a good video. Now that I'm learning a 3rd language I've become more interested in how knowing 2nd or 3rd languages improves mental agility and prevents illness like Alzeimer's and Dementia, Imo😊
Mexicans and Cubans and everyone else who’s native doesn’t speak the way Spanish is taught or standard version. It’s a lot of slang, personal intonation and accent etc. different regions add their own taste and twist to Spanish. But the standard Spanish language is the way he described it and it is a syllable-based language. Now, just cuz native speakers don’t follow the standard Spanish way doesn’t mean it’s not true.
My son's speaks Setswana and English as home languages, we moved back home and he's had to go to an Afrikaans school. I thought it was a good idea especially from a social and economic view however he's frustrated and he's not coping. I'm so happy to have come across this video
I hope you right by saying you never to old to learn a new language. I am a 72 year old South African and born bilingual. i cannot say which is my mother tongue as I think and speak in both languages equally well. I speak English and Afrikaans. Afrikaans is derived from Dutch so this allows me to understand languages spoken in the Netherlands, Belgium and to a degree in Germany. I have now been studying Mandarin for three years on Duolingo without skipping a day between lessons but its going slowly. What keeps me going is that feeling you mentioned when you understand or recognize whats been said when watching a Chinese movie. The talking part is particular difficult due to the different tones in Chinese Mandarin.
I have been learning French for a long time. Finding the expressions in a foreign language that fit my feelings is very interesting. Language is indeed related to the perception of things! I once experienced a personality change when I spoke a foreign language. Now I get used to it and it won't happen anymore, but there are slight mood swings between the language. My boyfriend said that my tone of voice changes according to the language I speak. My voice is higher in English and lower in French. I'm glad to hear that language learning delays memory loss when we get old! Recently, my grandmother forgot many things and now she has Alzheimer's. It scares me the most! I'll keep on learning the language and will try speaking it with young people when I get old!
I speak Indonesian at home exclusively, and when I entered elementary school, all my friends spoke Batak, the local language. I didn't know any Batak at all, and I was very confused. However, somehow, I vividly remember that by the end of the first grade, I was already speaking Batak fluently. I learned incredibly fast, not out of a deliberate effort, but it seemed to happen automatically. I just picked it up naturally and mastered it. On the other hand, I have been learning English since I was young, but only through vocabulary like the names of animals, fruits, vegetables, etc., without ever having real conversations. I didn't study English in elementary or middle school, and I only started learning it again in high school. It feels much more difficult now than when I was a child. I have to repeat lessons often and practice regularly. Now, I can understand what people are saying and watch English content without subtitles, but my speaking skills are still limited. I still experience the process of translating from my native language to English. Additionally, I am currently trying to learn Mandarin, so there are four languages in my head. And yes, it is so fun because I think in different languages, hahaha.
I’ve studied Japanese for over 20 years at this point I’m still not able to pass JLPT N1 but I got N2 on the first try. I was short by 3 points on the last N1 test. Going to take it again this year.
I never made much effort to speak French because I didn’t have anyone to speak to. I did,however,enjoy learning to read it because it seemed to help me learn German. I am Texan so don’t speak any recognized language maternally. I am comfortable speaking Spanish as my second language so when I couldn’t understand something by comparing French with German I would see how it was expressed in Spanish. I found that you can use almost any European language as that third leg. Using well known stories available in various languages was for me the quickest way to get up to speed in a new language. The most translated source is the Bible so the historical parts were very useful. Most times when I didn’t know the word,the context in a familiar story revealed its meaning. In fact,details I never noticed in English jumped out because of the extra effort to discern the meaning of an unfamiliar word.
I find it quite surpising when I first learnt Dutch in the beginning. As an Indonesian, we were taught the history of Indonesia, including the colonial era; we were a former Dutch colony for 350 years and that we borrow a lot of loanwords from Dutch. So when I began studying in the Netherlands, I took the chance to play Duolingo and learnt Dutch, and to my surprise I noticed a lot of similar Dutch words to Indonesia in terms of pronunciation and literal translation to English (e.g. "dierentuin" and "kebun binatang" both literally mean "animal garden"). After I completed Dutch, I began learning German and French, but with a little twist. I use Dutch as if it was my mother tongue, and with German it is quite simpler to learn since both languages have similar words and grammar stucture. In this way, I train my brain to learn potential new Dutch words I would not find learning Dutch for English speakers.
it is so true that you are more rational when speaking 2nd language. i can’t curse using my native language, cause i feel very uncomfortable and wrong, but i have no issue cursing in English. 😂
Learning languages have opened up so many friendships (not really opportunities since I only need English for my career). Recently I became friends with an Argentinian from a class and also several Japanese people through an exchange program.
hi Olly i bought your japanese short stories book recently and i was totally immersed into it. Even though I'm on JLPT N5 level but i felt like I'm a N4 student. Japanese is my third language by the way. In Singapore, almost everyone knows 2 languages. English and mother tongue which is either, Mandarin, Malay or Tamil. I'm a Singaporean Chinese so its so much easier for me to learn Japanese as a 3rd language.
I'm Brazilian and surely Portuguese is my Mother tong. One year and six months ago I started to learn English (I love Sabaton and country music). Then, I watched many videos about German culture, society, History, etc. These are my objectives English and German.
I "love" these research findings about the benefits of learning a second or third or to the ...n number of languages, especially delaying the onset of dementia, because my grandmother has this and she's a bilingual herself and knowing also a bit of Spanish from school which makes it her 3rd language, but at the age of more than 85+ right now still she's able to recall long-term memories, aside from having difficulty remembering day-to-day information which affects her "short-term" memory ability on the other end. I hope researches linking language and its benefits of strengthening our neuroplasticity provides us more and more evidence and positive results as the years go by. And also, I know he mentioned the word for "love" is only the word in English to be able to express different feelings associated with the meaning of "love" or being fond of something. So as a learner right now of 2 additional foreign languages, making it my overall 4th language in the process, I'm gonna try and use the word "love" in Japanese (currently learning) to express my love for this video. こちらの動画は愛します。外国語を勉強することのメリットが人生に欠かせないものなんです！
Im a trilingual, tbh, almost one, since im still learning russian(Im A2 close to B1) and my mother language’s portuguese, im fluent in english and learning a new language literally changed my life, i always am being congratulated for knowing it fluently being too young, like, even tho im just a teenager, i already had the opportunity of giving a english class, make ALOT of new friends, become smarter and follow my dream, i love learning languages, im thinking about learning japanese after russian, after this, i’d be very satisfied with who imma be also, here goes a joke: why do we spell “dark” with a “k” and not a “c”? because you can’t see in the dark!(you have to read this while speaking to understand, it happens because of the pronunciation of the c and see) since they’re pronounced as the same way
Your videos are truly so valuable, I always come away from them feeling so much smarter and assured in my language learning journey! I learned some French in high school, but now I’ve been learning Korean and Japanese as a hobby- it’s truly my favorite thing, it equally makes me feel so accomplished/smart and also just feels fun!
I started learning Mandarin Chinese, in college, and now I'm at a B1 level in Taiwanese Mandarin, and I want to learn Mongolian, once my Mandarin is at a C1-C2 level
What about a third , fourth, fifth and sixth language. Ok, I am just seriously at the fourth, the other 7 were either just a short appetizer for a few months, or casually for decades.
Boost your brain NOW with one of these easy languages! 👉🏼ruclips.net/video/jXfj5BKdZCA/видео.html
What happens if you start with a hard language as your second language and then go for an easy one for your third language?
You should look into the Japanese language learning games Shujinkou, Koe, Nihongo Quest N5, and Wagotabi.
So, in brief:
1. You become happier
2. You live longer
3. You make more friends
4. You get better financial opportunities
5. You get healthier
6. You (literally) become smarter
Isn't it the best hobby in the world?
You don’t necessarily make friends. If you learn a language in school or on Duolingo, you don’t have any native speakers to talk to, so by learning a language doesn’t get in touch with any new people
@@afjo972 Ok then maybe I should say "it allows you to make more friends".
@@1langueen100jours,
you explained every bit of motivation to learn, in one comment. 👏 👏 👏
@@afjo972 complete nonsense. The Internet gives you an instant opportunity to communicate both in writing and verbally in professional communities, amateur communities and other communities.
You're getting faster, harder, scooter😅
At the end of the day, my friend from Syria was correct. He said you get a soul for every language you learn.
Wow, I like that!
2:22 When she said "do you know how smart I am in Spanish?", I nearly cried...
I feel you.
I feel the same way!!
Cats when you are speaking in any new language you cannot think in your language then translate it in your brain, before saying the word , because this action takes a fraction of a second in your brain to process it then you sounds as if you do not know the language. You have to think in English not in Spanish. The perfect American or English accent is very difficult to learn because the tongue already knows the position to pronounce each letter of the native or mother language and when you try to position it differently you just give up. The children are able to do it easily but if you learn any foreign language as an adult it is very difficult . I have been living in USA for more than 50 years and cannot get rid of my Sofia Vergara’s accent . BTW I am also Colombian . We Latins living in Miami use a lot of Spanglish among us.
@@Claudette68 I learn English as a foreign language, and it's difficult to think in other way
@@Tamake872 english is my second language, but still, its my most used language every day, at the start its hard to make thoughts or even something coherent, but over time youll get to think more and more in other language
@@yamane-ruka2 That's nice
I have attempted (in school) Spanish and French, only picking up a minimal amount. Now as an older adult I tried to learn Korean (so I could understand the K-Dramas I was watching). I was having to relearn the same words over and over. Now, at almost 70, I am going to try my hand at Irish. No one to talk to. I just love their ancient culture and mythology. But I may revisit Korean again too.....
Love it! You're never too old to learn a new language.
@@storylearning I am just hoping to someday succeed!
You'll get there!
@@donnawitteried3213 Ofc, never too late to learn something new!
Omg om learning Korean and Irish
I'm trilingual--English as mother tongue and then the serial study of Japanese and French. I just started German three months ago and have been doing something in all four languages every day. This video helps me confirm what I've been experiencing. What's most wonderful about language #4 is that my mind is so much more "at ease" with language acquisition.
How good are you in Japanese
@@L4zyasz Between N2 and N3.
@@Kenoticrunner That's so cool! I'm german and have studied Italian for a few years now; and I thought of starting with Japanese this year! Mainly because I'm intersted in their culture and also I didn't want to learn another western european language, although that would be way easier...
do you have any tips for someone who's just started learning japanese?
@@aelie8198
I lived in Japan for 4 years. U would suggest learning to speak formal Japanese through your classes. It's better to err on side of formality in Japanese: you will make a better impression. Of course you can learn slang but only to speak to people you know ---children, teens and maybe to your Japanese tutor if they are very young.
wow, i wondered why writing out my feelings in spanish is different and almost made me feel a little detached from them, but now it makes perfect sense
It’s a wonderful thing!
I am from Ankara, Turkey , at age 18 I moved to the USA ( Portland, Oregon ) and learnt English..At age 27 I moved to China ( Shenzhen, Guangdong ) and I learnt Mandarin Chinese. Now at 46 I started studying Spanish online and next year I will be moving to Colombia to improve my Spanish.. I have to admit I am not certain that learning these two foreign languages has made that kind of a big difference in my brain in terms of exercising it like a muscle, but I know for a fact that it has changed my life in ways unimaginable and it has enriched my life beyond belief ...
What kind of work do you do that allows you to move around? Bc that sounds awesome
Hi Leila ! I have to admit life has been very awesome so far : ) About 13 years ago I was working for a company in China and decided to quit my job to start building my dream life, which is to keep traveling the globe and working online to make money to support the life style so I got into stock trading and through a lot of hard work , failures and lessons, I have made it work : ) I even recently open a RUclips channel where I post my daily trades. So basically, I have my own day-trading business and I specialize in the US stocks only.. I am currently traveling in Turkey, after here will be South America, and after that who knows we will see : ) Cheers ! @@leilaholivia
Oh thats interesting, thanks for sharing, i saw you speak chinese on your channel now too so you seem very comfortable with the language, very impressive
Thanks Leila : ) Yes I speak Chinese , it was a big goal of mine because it is one of the hardest languages to learn but living in China really helped for sure. Where are you writing from ? Do you live in the USA ? @@leilaholivia
I'm also from Ankara, Kahraman kazan. Good to see you here 😎
The point about recognising different patterns and finding foreign concepts less alien than monolingual people is something I noticed about myself quite recently. I used to translate everything and would struggle when certain words don’t have a good translation or when a sentence structure was vastly different from my native languages. But over time I felt less of an urge to translate things and sort of became more “accepting” of strange concepts and sentence structure in other languages.
May I ask roughly how long it was before you started feeling comfortable not translating back into your native tongue? I'm currently in the process of picking up my second language, and i'm still in the phase of having to translate everything back to English in my head; I was wondering how long before the second language would start to "stick" in that way, haha :)
Never translate everything. I think the key is to memorise a couple of "sample sentences" that you know to be correct. And then, you can form other sentences in the same model.
Also, don't go, "oh, you slice off this syllable and add that one, and then it's the plural past tense" or whatever. Memorise the tables: "fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis, fueron". Even though one of my Spanish teachers said, "es una locura". It's not. It works. 🙂
I’m 63 and learning German. Really enjoying it. ❤
Ich wünsche dir viel Erfolg 😁
After I learned English, I think differently, it’s magical, it’s like I have adopted another personality of mine, when I speak my native language Chinese, I always be introvert and socially anxious while I speak English I could be honest
So interesting! Thanks for sharing.
Language is more than just verbal. It's not only about learning words and sentences. It's also includes gestures and cultures.
@@paradisesunprincess true
Same bruh same
You start being more confident about yourself because learning English has that superior feeling like people vieview you a very Educated person and people treat you with respect.
The brain is sooo brilliant and complex, it's ridiculous! We are sooo blessed!
Olly, this is one of your all time greatest videos. A member of my Spanish conversation group had a stroke last year and for several weeks could not communicate in English but could in Spanish.
Which language is his native tongue?
He should think about moving to Florida
@@kandacehead9544 English
As a bilingual Spanish speaker I was able to learn enough Russian in 1 year to hold conversations with native speakers. Attending language meetups and practicing with apps like Tandem has proved invaluable. Bottom line: conversing with native speakers provides the context to help my brain retain the information I care about🧠🤓
Impressive! Keep up the good work.
Why russian? Genuine question.
I need to know too.
@@braddo7270I was first exposed to it during overseas deployment and always wanted to learn it one day. Opens up cool travel opportunities and new friendships around the 🌏
@@HCRAYERT.I've learned more cultural history and geography by learning this language than I ever imagined. All by simply talking to people in different countries, in their language.
One thing I would like to ad to the study method, is that you want to be moving after about 45 minutes of inactivity (standing while studying does help) and then for about 15 minutes get your heart pumping just a bit, like walk on some steps, just take a regular walk (preferably a bit faster than normal but any exercise is good exercise) this helps to create focus and helps you learn and remember/make memories better while also making you happy, cus it’s exercise!
Also another thing for your eyes is to look away after 30 minutes at something about 30 feet away (10 meters) for at least 30 seconds (closing your eyes also works).
Id love to know how this works for different neurotypes and also with age.
When I learnt conversational french 15 years ago I found it expressed a new or different part of my personality which was fun. And I could see how French language patterns and French style of discourse fit together, and in contrast to what happens in my native British English. fascinating
But now I am struggling with the basics in German... literally taking years to (fail to) learn simple vocabulary.
Wooow the doing therapy in your second language to emotionally detach and think more logically is such a good idea!! I wonder how far you can take this though because I'm an "empath" for lack of a more scientific name, and that doesn't go away in Spanish or French. In fact if I'm angry, I feel like the words in Spanish can better fit what I want to say with more passion. I often break into Spanish swearing when I'm angry 🤣 it's very satisfying. 😂
Spanish swearing is the best 😅
Interesting thought. Let me know what you find out!
@@storylearning honestly there's just something in my soul that awakens 🤣 like "la madre que te parió" (and that's a tame example) like bro... they go directly for the bloodline 🤣 the ancestors even don't escape the wrath of a mildly inconvenienced spanish woman (in my experience) 🤣
@@storylearning yeah I'd love to learn more about the different personality types and if/how they differ in this field. I have a feeling that some people can feel MORE emotive in a language if they're passionate about that language.
After learning Japanese learning Spanish feels like I'm cheating
😂
Crazy just how different Japanese is compared to Indo-European languages
Spanish has always been easy to learn as native English speaker because there are so many words that are similar or the same just pronounced differently vs 3 alphabets, tons of homophones and sentence rearrangement.
Same! After trying koine Greek, German (as a native English speaker) is SO easy.
But how can you say that!?
Grammar + reading + listening + writing + speaking + thinking= learning successfully.
I’ve been learning German on Duolingo since Sept 2021, as no one else in my household speaks German, I speak to my dog in German… I find it so easy to learn and utilise German thanks to actually being diagnosed and medicated for ADHD.
Dann wünsche ich dir noch reichlich Erfolg beim fortlaufenden Erlernen der deutschen Sprache! Deinem Hund natürlich auch - er ist ja schließlich gezwungenermaßen allzeit deiner sprachlichen Bemühungen ausgesetzt ;)
I am also learning languages using Duolingo; I learnt Dutch first since I am studying in the Netherlands. And I was very excited when I met a Dutch family in Dubai, because I was transitting there, and had a conversation with them, mostly in Dutch
Is your dog a German Shepard? 👀
I started Russian from English. Not because I wanted to use the language but as a builder of memory cells.
I also fill my time with Ukrainian and French. I don't consider it language learning because I do not speak to others. The long term benefits for me have been good. Probably because I don't pressure myself.
Consistency is the key. Never, ever miss a day.
Great video from Olly.🎉
I'm watching this in a foreign language 😎
I speak French (mother tongue), English (C1-C2), Hungarian (C1), German (B1-B2) and Russian (B1-B2), and I'm slowly starting Latvian too (I'm not even afraid and I'll surely learn it super fast because I'm used to it + this time I'll be directly immersed in the country), and it's true that it does make me happy. The sole feeling of being able to understand something people around you don't is just really cool.
I'm just 18 now, I don't want to count how many languages I'm able to use but I'm sure I want to continue as long as I'm mentally able to do it, no matter how much it became useless with new technologies.
Keep it up 😉..
Omg, Latvian! Its first time, when i see someone who learns Latvian🫣
@@meoomia_ Man ir vajadzīgs jo es tagad dzīvoju Latvijā :)
Hello! Do you have good resources for Hungarian ? I am learning it, and am having trouble finding material that is for native speakers.
Also any advice for it ? :D
So true, changing to another language is more than just using different words, but the whole way of thinking becomes different. Because language is attached to culture and has a great impact on how to say s.th.
Ich bin Deutsche, I do speak english quite well, hablo español un poco и я учу по-русски. 😅
There's a certain feeling for me as a non-native English speaker getting told (and fully understanding!) to learn more languages.
"I'm 4 parallel universes ahead" type of stuff
Wow. I had no idea there were that many benefits to learning a language!
So many benefits!
Yes! In the professional field for example, even if you don't know the duties, speaking another language opens new doors bcs you can always learn the job but not the language if that makes sense 😊😊
Like watching anime without subtitles for example
I'm a native English speaker who speaks Spanish relatively fluently, especially when I worked on a daily basis with native Spanish speakers. I also learned Dutch at the beginning of 3 years in the Netherlands, which was 30+ years ago--but I still speak Dutch to my dogs. I also learned some basic French while living in Nederland. Languages are fun and really do force you to express yourself differently. Now I have a strange urge to learn Welsh because it sounds so beautiful when spoken by @TheWelshViking.
I work as a part-time interpreter and I know many of my colleagues can easily work in other fields than interpretation but they amazingly stayed with it. I think you are right, the sense of satisfaction and joy(after conquering the pressure and brain challenge), plus helping others, are just so rewarding!! And I LOVE the fact of being able to less emotional but more rational while using 2nd language in life. I wish you all best luck in taking on a new language. I might sooner or later try a different one. Have a lovely day!
I'm learning Russian, and it is so fascinating how different their sentence structures are. Such a fun and beautiful language. Так интересно )
привет, как успехи?
Are their sentence structure hard?
After round about three months of studying Spanish (because I have a true motive);
I have started mentally and subconsciously translating everything that I hear-- and comments under every RUclips video that I watch-- into my target language (German and French are also on the pipeline).
There is so much pure joy in learning languages.... especially the urge to converse with native speakers, on a daily basis (#1 for me).
I start with listening only. For at least the better part of a year but preferably for the span of all four seasons, gradually daring myself to mimic what I hear, but without any pressure on myself. Then I begin learning how to read what I’m now accustomed to hearing, likewise gradually expanding the exercise to include reading aloud, reading silently, and reading alongside recorded speech. This stage lasts for a few more years, or perhaps several, but again and most importantly, with me feeling no sense of obligation, only enthusiasm. I don’t even fully comprehend what I’m hearing and reading at this stage. But that’s A-okay. Finally, after many years of exposure, coupled with loads of penalty-free practice, when I realize that I do indeed understand lots if not most of the target language, as both spoken and written, I move on to sink or swim. I go to places and/or events where I have no choice but to find my own voice. For me, this is the best way to approximate learning another language in a fashion similar to the first. Oh, and, for a bonus round (so to speak) I find any means of experiencing how native speakers of that given tongue learn English. This “learning English in reverse” literally and figuratively brings my journey full circle, right back home. Cheers, Olly!
As an Indonesian, I was born a biligual already. I speak Bahasa Indonesia, which is the official language of the country and a local language spoken only where I live. I started taking English more seriously back in 2018, got interested in Spanish in 2019. Recently, I've just started learning Turkish and Italian. I simply love all these languages and it doesn't rule out the possiblity of adding another language in the future😊 Top benefit number 1 is that it makes you happy, couldn't agree more ❤
OMG... You talked about knowing 2 languages and having a trauma to your brain you might recall the 2nd language and not the 1st. I had an experience of that. It was short. I had surgery and as they were waking me up I started using my second language. American Sign Language. I must have been talking a lot with it because they were about to call for an interpreter. I don't even recall speaking with my hands at all. I finally got out that it's a second language... Just to put it in perspective, I had servical spinal surgery and they went through the front if my neck. I ended up with a lot of neck trauma because they cut me about an inch too high and had trouble reaching my surgery area. So when I woke I didn't want to use my voice. I always use my hands when I have a sore throat and don't want to speak.
Another thing that happens with me... Sometimes I can't remember a word in English (oddly my native language) and I will try to explain it in ASL it's crazy. Light and off were 2 when I was younger once.
What an amazing story!
I consider myself as a Polyglot but my mother tongue is Brazilian Portuguese, my 1st foreign language obviously was English and then I decided for German because the proximity from English and then now I have decided to came back to Romance Languages with Italian because it is for me the most near romance language from Brazilian Portuguese than Spanish
Impressive! Keep up the good work.
I think the same is true for learning musical instruments. After you learn one, you can learn other instruments much easier!
Yeah, I can say from experience that is very true.
In Malay, we have a word called "manja" that cannot be translated into English.
Its when a young child, or a pet, is overly attention seeking in a cute way. And we ofc, cant help but want to give them attention 😂
I think there's one in Vietnamese for that.
This is hands down the best language learning video I have ever seen, and I have been at this for almost 16 years. Thank you for this.
Wow, thank you!
"What does a bilingual cat say?" lol, love it. I grew up bilingual and learned 3 additional modes of communication in addition to that. Anyone I grew up with will all agree that I am different. I have to agree. I see the world differently. I wouldn't say I am smarter, I believe anyone, within reason, can do this. I would say I have worked very hard to get here... I earned it. I would like it if many more people enjoyed this freedom. It is freedom.
So insightful. Keep up the great work!
I sh*t you not, that ninja segway gave pause to a ninja coffee maker advert and it couldn't have been more perfect 👌🤣
🤣
LOL! The "What does the bilingual cat say?" joke completely cracked me up! 🤣🤣
All this makes complete sense with what is happening inside my head with learning my second language (Korean). I find that the best way to learn any word is to connect it with a situation, not a meaning. If I connect it with a situation, I'm also connecting with the emotions of that situation, I'm connecting it with how and when that word might be used and I'm connecting it with a powerful memory that acts as a hook. Of course, I record their meanings in English (usually with a number of phrases rather than words to trigger my memory) but I don't connect them with a 'meaning'. For example, Korean "망했다" (munghedda) means basically, "I screwed it up!", but it's connected in my head with a thing I actually did screw up, not with any English words, so that whenever I hear that word, that situation immediately flashes into my head and I feel the meaning. THESE are the words I just don't really forget, unlike when I first started I simply remembered meanings of words directly connected to my native language, which just doesn't work. All that does is connect the new language to the old one in it's pathway so that you have to follow that path back through your old language - painstakingly translate everything through your old language - a pathway that never improves. Perhaps THIS is why school textbook learning just doesn't really work - it teaches intellectually, like remembering a phone number - that's a different kind of memory entirely. This is why story learning does work much better - particularly if you're not living in the culture your language is spoken in - you can at least situate that word with the situation in the story while your brain slowly embeds that word in memory connected together with various usages over time. I often do this too with new words, not with Olly's course, but with stories I listen to on RUclips. But those words inevitably end up being connected to my own life in some way eventually anyway. I suspect that the success one has in integrating a language into their own life is pretty essential to obtaining various levels of fluency. And I always try to use them if I can as soon as a situation presents itself. I'm constantly trying them out on my Korean friends, lol! 😂
In fact, this might be the only advantage for language beginners to living in the country that your new language is spoken. Living in my adopted country where I can actually hear the language everyday, in my experience, hasn't really helped me learn the language faster at all. What it HAS done is enable me to make those situational connections (connections with emotions and situations and memories) within the culture that I'm living. All my hooks and memories of my words and connections are situated in my new culture. Had I learned my new language in my native culture I would have had to make connections with my memories and situations in THAT culture, which wouldn't have worked near as well. As a beginner, living in the culture doesn't help you much with becoming fluent faster at ALL, because you can't have conversations or understand anything because you simply don't know enough anyway. It's only when you reach intermediate level that living in the culture that you are learning the language helps because you can start to have conversations and understand. What it DOES help you with is learning words and connecting them to the situations within that culture. The other thing is that a lot of words ONLY make sense in their own culture (as in Korean compared to English speaking cultures in general), so not knowing the culture would make it a lot more difficult to understand what many words mean if there is no real usage or existing word in your own culture.
This is why foreign language teachers recommend that the learner write a life diary in the new language and include experiences events and thoughts.💕💕🎯🎯🏅🏅
Perception of the world: I'm so in line with what is said! As vocab change, and sometimes the very structure of the sentences, you cannot depict the world the same way in different languages. The world becomes bigger with more than one language.
It's also a very good point not to think in one's mother tongue when only logic is needed. Better yet, when having an argument, don't do it in your birth language if you can. It feels a lot more like being in a controlled zone.
Love languages keeps me focused 👍
Absolutely!
For me my first language is English. In School from age 12 through age 17 I learned Spanish which I loved. Then I learned a little German which I might go back to eventually. More recently I've been challenging my brain at learning Japanese hardcore. After I feel I've gotten to a confident level in (Speaking, reading, and listening) in Japanese then I want to learn both Korean & Chinese. I currently live on the East coast of the USA at age 24 going on 25, and before I turn 30 I want to move to Japan
Go for it!
Ganbatte ne.
Go for it !
Cheering on for you!
I’ve been trilingual in English, Hindi, and Marathi since birth, can understand Gujarati and just finished A2 of French Uncovered. Can’t wait to begin B1 Olly. For some reason, my first three have become so internalised that it’s hard to believe my brain is doing all this work!
Absolutely amazing, isn't it?
I learnt Japanese in school and now 20 years later I've started learning Spanish.
Enjoy the easy ride of Spanish
this is my super power
I felt this joy when I was able to converse in Italian on a trip. Plus, people are more open when you speak their language.❤
These kinds of videos are so motivating. And it being easier to learn a thrid language after having learned your second is sooo true tho. It feels like a superpower tbh
Thing about the trauma is totally true. I’m fluent in both French and Portuguese but much more bad experiences happened to me in Portuguese when I was a child and French was totally a way to escape that. I feel much more comfortable and sociable and relaxed when speaking French today then when speaking Portuguese. Even my perception about myself changed completely once I started living in a different language context. It’s crazy cause it’s really like having a second life.
This was very interesting. I started learning Spanish at 23, when I lived in Andalucia and 3 years later I'm still learning, but I speak with a B2 level. I started learning French 6 months ago and I just spoke to a native and she said that I sound like someone who has been learning French for 3 years, not 6 months. Of course, the grammar rules are basically identical with Spanish & English has more than 2K words that are French. So I am in a fantastic position to learn this language. However, i remembered my biggest mistake in Spanish was being too embarrassed of myself to speak. So, I often wouldn't try which meant it took me way longer to learn. It wasn't until I went to a Spanish speaking place, in the middle of nowhere where I had to speak Spanish that I actually made progress. So I knew that I could not repeat the same mistake with French. Mistakes are often really funny anyway and make a great story
Thank you for sharing these great news. My native language is Mandarin and I have been speaking English for many many years. I do find I can be detached emotionally when speaking English. I am translating Chinese poetry into English. I find the subtle feelings that I can easily expressed in Mandarin are very hard for me to put into English and trigger similar emotional reactions for me. I am lucky that I have a colleague to work with me and he is able to get the some of the feeling expressed in English after my lengthy explanation!!
I started speaking German to my pug and he turned into shephard
🤣
Has anyone else when using a third language and not knowing a word then switch to your second language to finish the thought/sentence rather than switching to first language? It happens all the time for me. I’d like to understand the science behind it. 🤔
Yep. Code-switching gets more interesting once you know 3 or more languages. I love it.
Yes, I wasn't aware, but now after reading your comment, I think you're right. Currently I'm learning italian. If I don't know a word, I switch to english and after that to my mothertongue.
But I also see the effect the other way around. I'm also learning a little Irish on a very basic level. But often some irish words pop up in my head whenever I try to write and speak proper english and lack of vocabulary 😅
This happens to me when I'm speaking Japanese (I'm not fluent at all so I struggle a lot with vocabulary) but I thought it was because I'm learning Japanese using English and not my native language (Spanish)
Happens to me too.🙂
1-English
2-French (basic conversational)
3-ASL (limited conversational)
4-Spanish (also limited conversational)
Linguo-glitch moment: i was conversing in French when my brain got stuck in mid-sentence .. this was a phone call so the other person wouldn't have seen my hands move toward each other (in ASL) when "con" (Spanish word) took the correct placement where "avec" was missing.
I had misplaced the French word for "with," and I have two other standby languages stored in my brain.
American Sign Language "with" uses both hands (in almost this shape 👍) with fingers curled onto palms and thumb out, with palms facing to each other, and then moving toward each other until the middle-knuckle segments meet flat.
ASL's origin began in French language structure, and it has developed into more of a thought-concept language rather than the word-for-word "Signed English" version. It's a fascinating language that uses hand shape, orientation, placement, and movement, along with facial expressions and body movement, to converse in thought-concept with a looser sentence structure than spoken languages. There is no grammar rule that says you must sign the sequence as "Shirt Mine Blue" or "Shirt Blue Mine." It's less common (less acceptable?) to put the adjectives before the noun as we do in spoken English.
Never Stop Learning!
❤
@9:00 When it was too late to benefit my kids, I heard that if you play a nonnative language (Telemundo, for instance) for the first 6 mos of the kid's life, it makes it *much* easier for the kid to learn languages throughout it's life.
Could be!
Super interesting!
You have a new subscriber...MOI! I am not quite fluent in Spanish, but I understand the basics and can get around in a Spanish-speaking town if I need / want to. I grew up in Texas, where I felt it was important to learn Spanish and I recently came to Lousiana where I naturally feel encouraged to learn French. I love languages! Seeing the similaries between the romance languages blows my mind. Thank you for the fascinating information!
It's 2024 and I've started learning Italian, my native language is Turkish, I've already learned enough English and now I'm learning Italian. I'll come here at 1 January 2025 and write my level of Italian. See you guys in 2025, arrivederci 👋🏼
I just started Japanese, so I will join you next year with a comment. Good luck brother
Japanese in 2025
Few years ago i started my knowledge in English , today I until not are a fluent speaker yet , but I can understood everything, so now I’m thinking about to learn French , I from Brazil 🇧🇷, my maternal tongue are the Portuuese, but I’m trying everyday to learn more and more.
It’s really pleasure to watching this video as a foreigner English speaker
I fully experience that heal trauma one!!! I wasn't able to discuss anything about how I felt or what I was thinking in my native language. I had no problem with comprehension in my first language, but I just couldn't really talk. It confused and bothered me for so many years until I suddenly came to study abroad, and I was able to talk to a therapist finally in my second language. People were asking me why I didn't get a therapist in my native language, like they were wondering if I'd feel getting more barriers talking about myself in a second language. But then no. Despite I didn't know as many words in my second language, I talk better. Because there're just so many emotions associated with all the words in my native language, that I just can't talk about anything, because talking about anything in my first language would overwhelm me with emotions. (Then I learned a third language, but not really fluent. And an interesting thing I found is that I'm now able to calm myself by thinking in my third language. Because I don't actually talk to anyone in my third language. By thinking in my third language, I sort of manage to limit my brain activity, which is therapeutic to me.)
I like how I actually learned english as a second language and now that im fluent in it, I watch english RUclips videos to learn other languages lol. I actually gotta remind myself sometimes that english isn't even my first language, when I feel like im wasting my time watching these videos. Cause thats literally how I learned english in the first place. "Wasting" my time watching english RUclips all day, reading english comments and writing comments in english myself (just like this one). Turns out I didn't waste my time after all huh.
I speak Indonesian natively and while growing up surrounded by Mandarin speakers, Balinese, East
+ Central Javanese, and Kupang language. I can understand French now as I grow older.
If you have kids, make sure they learn multiple languages AND music or singing. You will be surprised at how intelligent they will grow up to be.
I came across this video because I'm studying Egyptian Arabic. American-English is my first language, Punjabi second, Spanish third and now Arabic! It's the hardest and TONS of fun while very HARD also. I can feel the positive effects on my brain... it's AWESOME. Great video!
I remember in my 20s, I was confronted by Scientology to take a "personality test." I translated all the questions into Japanese, answered in Japanese, then picked the closest answer in English. I was adjudged a wreck and in imminent need of Scientology's help. I tried it several months later in English, with similar dire need of Scientology's assistance.
The weird part is that I have slightly different opinions in either language. And don't get me started in Mexican Spanish now that I live in California!
Interesting.
Scientology is a scam , they would have said you need help no matter what. A different person administering the test could have interpreted it differenlty. Go to their turf in Clearwater FL. It was a super creepy experience.
As far as I understand, dopamine isn’t the happiness or reward chemical, it’s the motivation or anticipation chemical. It’s linked with addiction because it makes it feel like there will be a reward, which explains why it isn’t maximal after something good happens but before.
To be honest, i was looking for this for a long time.
I have been learning Japanese for 3 years..And it seems so hard to me that many many times I wanted to give up..
And I always wandered that I'm working so hard and if it has any kind of impact on my brain
You can be certain it is!
Mi lengua materna es el castellano,y entiendo el inglés. Es una gran satisfacción para mí ver un video,y darme cuenta después de que lo ví (porque estaba muy concentrado en el tema) ,que el video estaba en inglés y no en español 😄. Es una tontería,pero realmente me alegra el día. Estoy pensando estudiar Japonés y Alemán ;estudiar idiomas me han cambiado la vida,me han ayudado a superar mi depresión.
Now I feel like a chad. Yeah, I am smarter, I am better. Even if the rules of Norwegian are nearly identical to English; I went to the shop. Jeg gikk til butikken. The only difference is the “en”at the end of butikk, that replaces the. For my third language, I decided to go for one that will challenge me. Let’s hope that I feel even smarter after that
Keep up the great work!
@@storylearning well. It’s not really work. I’m pretty fluent in Norwegian. I’ve known it since I was a toddler
A question to the author of the video. Any ideas if one is learning 2-3 languages at the same time? How not to forget and do not mix up the words from one language to the other? Thanks in advance.
Good question! Check out the story of how I learned my languages here: ruclips.net/video/ZtQwAr1vT5c/видео.html
I’m from India I know 4 languages (learning more) and currently living in Spain . It’s been a year in Spain and I’m so happy with my progress that I can express my emotions and feelings in Spanish and I recently cried over something and I expressed how I felt in Spanish 😂😂
I am danish, lived in Germany as a child, learned english in school, have a child with an italian, so I speak italian too. And a little bit french and spanish. I love being a polyglot 😁. Love from Denmark 🇩🇰
That’s quite normal for many Europeans. 😊
10:53 this seemed pretty normal to me. I've always felt it strange that in English we call those two colors both "blue", since they very clearly look like two distinct and different colors. although this allows me to easily understand how other language might use a single word for two or more differentiated color names in English
And the amazing thing is those kids grow up thinking of them as two distinct colours, not shades of one colour.
Fascinating, isn't it?
wonderful video. I'm going to write my feelings in English to see if this theory works for me. my mother tongue is Portuguese
As an Indonesian, I speak 5 languages.
1. Sundanese, local west Java province.
2. Indonesian, for school and work.
3. English, for deeper education and entertainment.
4. Arabic, well I am Muslim and spent 1 year learning.
5. Japanese. Now I work in Japan.
As a native Spanish speaker pls don't generalize us. Cubans and mexicans have waay different rhythms of speech😂 Colombians and panamanians as well. It's like saying that all English speakers are from England or the US. Nevertheless this is a good video. Now that I'm learning a 3rd language I've become more interested in how knowing 2nd or 3rd languages improves mental agility and prevents illness like Alzeimer's and Dementia, Imo😊
Mexicans and Cubans and everyone else who’s native doesn’t speak the way Spanish is taught or standard version. It’s a lot of slang, personal intonation and accent etc. different regions add their own taste and twist to Spanish. But the standard Spanish language is the way he described it and it is a syllable-based language. Now, just cuz native speakers don’t follow the standard Spanish way doesn’t mean it’s not true.
4 commercial breaks in the 1st 10 minutes & 24 seconds, each with multiple adverts, is just freaking RIDICULOUS
My son's speaks Setswana and English as home languages, we moved back home and he's had to go to an Afrikaans school. I thought it was a good idea especially from a social and economic view however he's frustrated and he's not coping. I'm so happy to have come across this video
I hope you right by saying you never to old to learn a new language. I am a 72 year old South African and born bilingual. i cannot say which is my mother tongue as I think and speak in both languages equally well. I speak English and Afrikaans. Afrikaans is derived from Dutch so this allows me to understand languages spoken in the Netherlands, Belgium and to a degree in Germany.
I have now been studying Mandarin for three years on Duolingo without skipping a day between lessons but its going slowly. What keeps me going is that feeling you mentioned when you understand or recognize whats been said when watching a Chinese movie.
The talking part is particular difficult due to the different tones in Chinese Mandarin.
I have been learning French for a long time. Finding the expressions in a foreign language that fit my feelings is very interesting. Language is indeed related to the perception of things!
I once experienced a personality change when I spoke a foreign language. Now I get used to it and it won't happen anymore, but there are slight mood swings between the language. My boyfriend said that my tone of voice changes according to the language I speak. My voice is higher in English and lower in French.
I'm glad to hear that language learning delays memory loss when we get old! Recently, my grandmother forgot many things and now she has Alzheimer's. It scares me the most! I'll keep on learning the language and will try speaking it with young people when I get old!
I speak Indonesian at home exclusively, and when I entered elementary school, all my friends spoke Batak, the local language. I didn't know any Batak at all, and I was very confused. However, somehow, I vividly remember that by the end of the first grade, I was already speaking Batak fluently. I learned incredibly fast, not out of a deliberate effort, but it seemed to happen automatically. I just picked it up naturally and mastered it.
On the other hand, I have been learning English since I was young, but only through vocabulary like the names of animals, fruits, vegetables, etc., without ever having real conversations. I didn't study English in elementary or middle school, and I only started learning it again in high school. It feels much more difficult now than when I was a child. I have to repeat lessons often and practice regularly. Now, I can understand what people are saying and watch English content without subtitles, but my speaking skills are still limited. I still experience the process of translating from my native language to English. Additionally, I am currently trying to learn Mandarin, so there are four languages in my head. And yes, it is so fun because I think in different languages, hahaha.
I’ve studied Japanese for over 20 years at this point
I’m still not able to pass JLPT N1 but I got N2 on the first try.
I was short by 3 points on the last N1 test.
Going to take it again this year.
I never made much effort to speak French because I didn’t have anyone to speak to. I did,however,enjoy learning to read it because it seemed to help me learn German. I am Texan so don’t speak any recognized language maternally. I am comfortable speaking Spanish as my second language so when I couldn’t understand something by comparing French with German I would see how it was expressed in Spanish. I found that you can use almost any European language as that third leg.
Using well known stories available in various languages was for me the quickest way to get up to speed in a new language. The most translated source is the Bible so the historical parts were very useful. Most times when I didn’t know the word,the context in a familiar story revealed its meaning. In fact,details I never noticed in English jumped out because of the extra effort to discern the meaning of an unfamiliar word.
I find it quite surpising when I first learnt Dutch in the beginning. As an Indonesian, we were taught the history of Indonesia, including the colonial era; we were a former Dutch colony for 350 years and that we borrow a lot of loanwords from Dutch. So when I began studying in the Netherlands, I took the chance to play Duolingo and learnt Dutch, and to my surprise I noticed a lot of similar Dutch words to Indonesia in terms of pronunciation and literal translation to English (e.g. "dierentuin" and "kebun binatang" both literally mean "animal garden"). After I completed Dutch, I began learning German and French, but with a little twist. I use Dutch as if it was my mother tongue, and with German it is quite simpler to learn since both languages have similar words and grammar stucture. In this way, I train my brain to learn potential new Dutch words I would not find learning Dutch for English speakers.
This makes me think of my husband 😂 he often sleep talks in Russian, English, German and Swiss German. The brain is really amazing.
Actually for the word "Hiraeth" we could say "anemoia effect" or just "anemoia". I heard this once and it fits pretty well
it is so true that you are more rational when speaking 2nd language. i can’t curse using my native language, cause i feel very uncomfortable and wrong, but i have no issue cursing in English. 😂
Learning languages have opened up so many friendships (not really opportunities since I only need English for my career). Recently I became friends with an Argentinian from a class and also several Japanese people through an exchange program.
hi Olly i bought your japanese short stories book recently and i was totally immersed into it. Even though I'm on JLPT N5 level but i felt like I'm a N4 student. Japanese is my third language by the way. In Singapore, almost everyone knows 2 languages. English and mother tongue which is either, Mandarin, Malay or Tamil. I'm a Singaporean Chinese so its so much easier for me to learn Japanese as a 3rd language.
20:11 omg I don’t know why but that forced such a loud laugh out of me, haven’t laughed like that in a long time 💀
You never know what’s gonna get you
It's nice to see a positive video under the psychology tag:so many of them are negative. Enjoy life and be what you can be!
If you can see the concentration ninja at all, it's not a ninja.
I'm Brazilian and surely Portuguese is my Mother tong. One year and six months ago I started to learn English (I love Sabaton and country music). Then, I watched many videos about German culture, society, History, etc.
These are my objectives English and German.
Thanks for explaining why i cannot do one thing at a time and how easy continue being multitasks 🙏🏻😮❤❤❤❤❤❤
I am bless to know 4
As a person who speaks Serbian as my native language, I want to learn French and Italian too.
It will be a huge boost for me to know 4 languages.
I "love" these research findings about the benefits of learning a second or third or to the ...n number of languages, especially delaying the onset of dementia, because my grandmother has this and she's a bilingual herself and knowing also a bit of Spanish from school which makes it her 3rd language, but at the age of more than 85+ right now still she's able to recall long-term memories, aside from having difficulty remembering day-to-day information which affects her "short-term" memory ability on the other end.
I hope researches linking language and its benefits of strengthening our neuroplasticity provides us more and more evidence and positive results as the years go by.
And also, I know he mentioned the word for "love" is only the word in English to be able to express different feelings associated with the meaning of "love" or being fond of something.
So as a learner right now of 2 additional foreign languages, making it my overall 4th language in the process, I'm gonna try and use the word "love" in Japanese (currently learning) to express my love for this video.
こちらの動画は愛します。外国語を勉強することのメリットが人生に欠かせないものなんです！
Im a trilingual, tbh, almost one, since im still learning russian(Im A2 close to B1) and my mother language’s portuguese, im fluent in english and learning a new language literally changed my life, i always am being congratulated for knowing it fluently being too young, like, even tho im just a teenager, i already had the opportunity of giving a english class, make ALOT of new friends, become smarter and follow my dream, i love learning languages, im thinking about learning japanese after russian, after this, i’d be very satisfied with who imma be
also, here goes a joke: why do we spell “dark” with a “k” and not a “c”? because you can’t see in the dark!(you have to read this while speaking to understand, it happens because of the pronunciation of the c and see) since they’re pronounced as the same way
great ! English is my third language and I love it. these kind of videos help me in first time when I start learning new languages. thanks a lot
20:11 in Indonesia we have a word for "When the joke is so terrible that made it so funny" is called Jayus
@@iusearchbtw69 that is an A tier word
Your videos are truly so valuable, I always come away from them feeling so much smarter and assured in my language learning journey!
I learned some French in high school, but now I’ve been learning Korean and Japanese as a hobby- it’s truly my favorite thing, it equally makes me feel so accomplished/smart and also just feels fun!
I started learning Mandarin Chinese, in college, and now I'm at a B1 level in Taiwanese Mandarin, and I want to learn Mongolian, once my Mandarin is at a C1-C2 level
Sounds like a great plan!
Mongolian is such an interesting language. It sounds so unique! I would like to start learning it one day!
What about a third , fourth, fifth and sixth language. Ok, I am just seriously at the fourth, the other 7 were either just a short appetizer for a few months, or casually for decades.